Headlines

The Central Bank has strongly criticised banks for their slow progress in tackling the mortgage crisis, saying the extent of their efforts to fix the problems showed that “wait and see” had become the strategy of choice for lenders, the Irish Times reported. In a strongly worded speech to a conference of bankers, the Central Bank’s head of banking regulation Fiona Muldoon said that the banks were behaving like teenagers in responding to its requests to deal with the problem with mortgages.

Lenders to Australia's beleaguered Nine Entertainment television network, owned by CVC Capital Partners Ltd, are close to agreeing on a deal to swap debt for equity, sources with knowledge of the talks said, Reuters reported. The deal will wipe out CVC's A$1.8 billion ($1.84 billion) equity investment in Nine, marking the largest-ever loss on a single private-equity deal in Asia, and one of the biggest globally. Nine had proposed a debt-for-equity swap deal to avoid going into receivership.

Equipment rental company Hirepool has sought clearance by the anti-trust regulator to buy rival Hirequip out of receivership in a bid to get greater exposure to the heavy construction sector as the Christchurch rebuild starts hitting its stride, The National Business Review reported. Hirepool, which is 75% owned by Australian private equity firm Next Capital, has requested the Commerce Commission clear its acquisition, saying the merger will not substantially cut competition as they largely operate in different areas.

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the European Union arrived just as a realization was dawning that Europe’s single currency — the Union’s most ambitious project — had survived three years of incessant financial turmoil and was not going to break up, the International Herald Tribune reported. But having narrowly avoided an acrimonious divorce and the loss of some of its errant children, the euro zone risks a future as an unequal, loveless marriage with frequent rows and the prospect of separate bedrooms.

Failing insurers will be allowed to go bust under a new British regulatory regime which will focus on limiting the impact on customers, one of the system's watchdogs said on Monday, Reuters reported. The Prudential Regulatory Authority, a Bank of England unit whose job from next year is to keep the financial system stable, "will not seek to operate a zero-failure regime," it said in a document setting out its approach. "The PRA will seek to ensure that any insurers that fail do so in a way that avoids significant adverse effects on policyholders," it added.

Poland’s financial regulator will ease conditions for consumer and mortgage lending in order to stimulate borrowing amid an economic slowdown and to combat growth in the shadow banking sector, its head said Monday, the Real Time Emerging Europe blog reported. With the European Union’s largest emerging economy cooling rapidly this year, Warsaw has stepped up actions aimed at supporting growth and propping up sagging consumer demand.

Lisbon has unveiled an uncompromisingly tough budget for 2013 involving the biggest direct tax increases in living memory as the government struggles to keep Portugal’s €78 billion bailout programme on track, the Irish Times reported. Finance minister Vítor Gaspar said yesterday that income tax increases would include a special 4 per cent levy on earnings. The average tax rate would increase from 9.8 per cent of earnings to 13.2 per cent.

Warring Nine Entertainment lenders remained intransigent Monday ahead of this morning's crucial meeting, which could result in the appointment of receivers, The Australian reported. Nine chairman Peter Bush and chief executive David Gyngell will host a 9am session at the Sydney offices of law firm Gilbert + Tobin, to be attended by representatives of US hedge funds Apollo and Oaktree, and Goldman Sachs. At issue is Nine's $3.3 billion debt, with $2.3bn in senior debt classified as current ahead of its February maturity.

An indirect subsidiary of financially troubled real estate company Homburg Invest Inc. has received US$24 million from the sale of some of its U.S. assets, The Gazette reported on a Canadian Press story. Homburg Invest, which is under creditor protection in Canada, said Monday that Homburg Holdings (U.S.) Inc. stands to make up to an additional US$1.5 million on the sale of holdings related to its joint venture arrangements with Cedar Realty Trust Inc. if certain conditions are met. Homburg said that on Oct.

A weekend gathering of the world's top finance officials deepened conflicts among some of the largest economies, raising fresh doubts about their ability to find big steps quickly to boost the flagging global recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported. At the annual meetings in Tokyo of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, European officials bickered about the damage caused by austerity; this week they head into a major euro-zone summit with no clear rescue plan for Greece.